Hermetically sealed housings are useful in a wide variety of applications. A hermetically sealed housing is generally configured to prevent fluidic transfer between the interior and the exterior of the housing.
One particular area where hermetically sealed housings have been proposed is in the field of data storage devices, which are used to store and retrieve large amounts of user data in a fast and efficient manner. Such devices generally include an internally supported data storage medium, which may be accessed by a moveable data transducer or by another access methodology.
The use of a hermetically sealed housing in a data storage device advantageously allows the use of a lower density fluid within the housing, such as an inert gas (e.g., helium). This can provide certain operational performance advantages including lower data transducer fly heights, reduced nonrepeatable runout (NRRO) effects, and higher data recording densities.
A hermetically sealed housing can also reduce corrosion of internal components and contamination from external particles. Thus, such a housing can be advantageous even if the data storage device has no internal moving parts.
There is accordingly a need for improvements in hermetically sealed housings, such as a housing of a data storage device, and it is to such improvements that the claimed invention is generally directed.